This dance exercise allows children to use their creative abilities while moving to music. Explain to your child or group of children that you will be playing some music. When the music starts, call out a person, animal or character. The children should then move in a way that they think represents what you call out. Remind them that there is no "correct" way to move. There can be many ways to represent various characters. For groups of children you might want to set ground rules like no talking or touching others. When the music stops they should freeze. This allows you to restructure the group if necessary. Some ideas for what to call out during the music include a giant, snake, mouse, skier, cowboy, cowgirl---even the President.
This dance exercise gives kids an opportunity to exercise leadership skills as well as follow directions. Divide your group into pairs. If you're working with just one child, you can be the child's partner for this activity. Designate one child as the "leader" and one child as the "mirror" in each pair. Explain that when the music starts, the leader must move his body while facing his partner. The "mirror" must imitate whatever her partner does. Explain to the groups that the object is to learn to move together and that the leader shouldn't try to move faster than the mirror can imitate. Instruct the children that they must remain silent and not touch each other. After a minute or two, instruct the children to switch roles. After the kids have had a chance to practice being the leader and the mirror, you might even ask for volunteers to come to the front of the class and demonstrate their mirror dance.
This dance activity provides a great way for older kids (older elementary through high school) to express themselves through dance. Talk about how music and dance communicate various emotions. If you have a group of children, prepare a set of index cards by writing one emotion on each card. You might use emotions such as "joyful," "anxious," "surprised" and "suspenseful." Have the kids draw a card from the deck. Give them about 10 minutes to think of a brief dance sequence that communicates the emotion that they drew. You might want to allow them to move to separate areas of the room, or you could move the class outside so that they have space to work on their dance. If you want to make this a larger project, you could even assign this as homework and instruct the children to select music that will help to communicate their selected emotion. You can also have them perform silently. Once the kids have created their dance, allow them to share it with you (if you're working one on one) or with the group. This works best with groups who are somewhat familiar with dance activities.